Hope and Misery
The Heidelberg Catechism adapted for Children vol 1
Lord’s Day 1
Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?
A. That I belong to Jesus Christ. Whether I live or die, or whatever happens to me, I belong entirely to Him. He is my Savior and will keep His promises to me.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the power of the devil.
He takes care of me and protects me. Nothing happens to me except what my Father in Heaven sees is good for me.
Since I belong to Jesus, His Holy Spirit changes me so that I am willing and ready to live my life for Him and know that I will be with Him forever.
1 Cor. 6:19-20 Rom. 14:7-9 1 Cor. 3:23; Titus 2:14 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:2
John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:1-11 John 6:39-40; 10:27-30; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:5
Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18 Rom. 8:28 Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14
1 Rom. 8:1-17
The very famous and beautiful beginning of the HC, as you might know from some of my other projects, I have attempted to render the catechism into words that are easy for children to read without ‘dumbing down’ the ideas.
There really aren’t any words that I can say to comment on something that is so complete and perfect in itself.
Q & A 2
Q. What do you need to know to have this comfort whatever happens to you?
A. Three things:
first, how much of a sinner I am and all the misery this causes second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery
third, how I am to thank God for rescuing me.
Rom. 3:9-10; 1 John 1:10 John 17:3; Acts 4:12; 10:43
Matt. 5:16; Rom. 6:13; Eph. 5:8-10; 2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Pet. 2:9-10
Question 2 is sort of the layout of the catechism. Each topic will be fit into one of these three categories. The kids are just finishing up Misery now and let me tell you it has been a joy to tell my children what a bunch of failures and losers they are. I know we make fun of the ‘everybody gets a trophy’ culture and that kind of thing, but even for a grumpasaurus like me it gets fairly intense teaching some of this to a 5 year old.
Part I: Misery
Lord’s Day 2
Q & A 3
Q. How do you come to know your misery?
A. The law of God tells me.
Q & A 4
Q. What does God’s law require of us?
A. Christ teaches us this in Matthew 22:
“‘You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.’
This is the greatest and first commandment.
“And the second is like it:
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
“All of God’s Law comes from these two commands.”
Q & A 5
Q. Can you keep God’s Law?
A. No.
I can’t stop hating God and my neighbor and so I break all of God’s rules.
Rom. 3:9-20, 23; 1 John 1:8, 10
Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 7:23-24; 8:7; Eph. 2:1-3; Titus 3:3
Simple and clear. Love is the foundation of the Law. The Law of Moses cannot be replaced by a Law of Love as some teach, because Moses’ Law is the Law of Love. The command to love convicts us as sinners more than commands about mere outward things ever could. Our deepest failure is the failure to love God and our neighbor, this is the Root Cause of all of our misery and our inability to stop or change course leads everyone either into a state of indifference and mindlessness or for those who can’t go this route into despair.
Lily has a double dose of her dad’s overacheiving, never surrender attitude, and I don’t think that she ever successfully answered No when we were doing question 5. This is where her tears and screaming that she hated this and didn’t want to do it happened. There is nothing harder than to admit failure, but no lesson more crucial to learn. Sorry, baby.
.
Lord’s Day 3
Q & A 6
Q. Did God make us so evil and messed up?
A. No. God created us good, in His own image, Righteous and holy, so that we can know God the way He really is, love him with our whole hearts, and live with God in eternal happiness, and give Him the praise and glory that is right.
Gen. 1:31 Gen. 1:26-27 Eph. 4:24 Col. 3:10 Ps. 8
Q & A 7
Q. Then why are we so bad?
A. Adam and Eve, our parents, fell into sin while they were living in Paradise. We not only sin like them but that sin is poison that we pass onto our children so that they are sinners too.
Gen. 3 Rom. 5:12, 18-19 Ps. 51:5
Q & A 8
Q. But are we so bad
that we are totally unable to do any good
and want to do evil?
A. Yes, unless we are born again
by the Spirit of God.
I was really stuck on a way to explain original sin to the kids. I hope poison is a good analogy it was the best that I could come up with. I know a lot of people like to say ‘it’s in the DNA’ or something like that, and I can see a certain truth to that but it doesn’t seem to me, helpful as an explanation, it just makes inheritance more ‘sciency’.
Number 8 is another one that my little mini-me couldn’t believe the answer to. I guess I usually talk in pretty negative tones about admitting defeat. The funny thing is, that some of us have to really TRY at keeping God’s Law before we are ready to hear this. I say that we can’t keep the Law as somebody who doesn’t give up very often, and has shed a lot of tears and yelled and cussed God and myself over this many times.
Lord’s Day 4
Q & A 9
Q. But isn’t God unfair to us to require in his law
what we are unable to do?
A. No, God created people right.
But we stubbornly followed the devil and made ourselves and our children sinners.
Gen. 1:31; Eph. 4:24 Gen. 3:13; John 8:44 Gen. 3:6 Rom. 5:12, 18, 19
Q & A 10
Q. Does God let
disobeying and rebelling against Him
go unpunished?
A. Certainly not.
God is terribly angry with the sin we are born with
and the sins we do ourselves.
God is a good and right judge and will punish sin in this life and forever. He says:
“I curse everyone who doesn’t do everything that my law says all the time.”
Ex. 34:7; Ps. 5:4-6; Nah. 1:2; Rom. 1:18; Eph. 5:6; Heb. 9:27
Gal. 3:10; Deut. 27:26
Q & A 11
Q. But doesn’t God show mercy?
A. God is merciful. But He will do what it takes to make the world right.
Ex. 34:6-7; Ps. 103:8-9 Ex. 34:7; Deut. 7:9-11; Ps. 5:4-6; Heb. 10:30-31
Matt. 25:35-46
Here I have to confess to some fairly serious changes. I don’t have a problem with God punishing sinners but the original pushes very hard a forensic(courtroom) reading of our interactions with God, which while true and valid, is not by any means my favorite. I don’t think that this is a necessary or helpful emphasis generally. The courtroom view of God is present in Scripture but is greatly overemphasized, in my opinion, in Western Christianity basically since the severe lawyer Tertullian tried to reform Latin Christian morals. So, now you are caught up with us. We hope to finish question 10 and 11 in the next week or so and are looking forward to moving out of Misery and into Deliverance! Hope you all are enjoying coming along with us.
Hope and Misery
This us what I should have written, should have said to Lily:
'The forgiveness of sins is not a matter of particulars – as if on the whole one were good. (This is childish, for the child always begs forgiveness for some particular thing which it did yesterday and forgets today, etc.; it could never occur to a child, in fact, the child could not even get it into its head, that it is actually evil.) No, it is just the opposite. It pertains not so much to particulars as to the totality. It pertains to one’s whole self, which is sinful and corrupts everything as soon as it comes in slightest contact with it.' S Kierkegaard